Never Change
By Luisa R., Keeseville, NY
Never Change by Elizabeth Berg really surprised me. I was skeptical at first, but after a few pages, it got me.
Central to the novel is the life of Myra Lipinsky, a spinster in the 1950s who lives with her dog in a pretty house in New England. Berg gives plenty of background information about Myra’s clients, so you have a good idea what she is dealing with as a visiting nurse. There is the old Jewish couple who fight all day but really care about each other; the drug dealer with a gunshot wound; a teen mom who needs Myra’s help; the nice lady who is wealthy but has no one to help her with her medicine, and the old lady with Alzheimer’s who needs assistance with her groceries and managing her disease. Myra loves her job and is happy, but she wasn’t always so content.
In several flashbacks, Berg shows how Myra felt in high school. In short, she was an outsider and a pushover, wanting to make others happy and never thinking of herself. She had a huge crush on the athletic Chip Reardon, but nothing ever happened; she figured she didn’t have a chance.
Years later, Myra gets a new client with brain cancer. There is no hope for a cure. When she sees the patient’s information, she is shocked to discover her new charge is Chip Reardon. And she still has feelings for him!
I definitely enjoyed reading this novel and witnessing the wonderful relationship that develops between Myra and Chip. The story flows and I was so eager to find what would happen that I had trouble putting the book down. Berg knows how to use humor and irony to make a scene stick in readers’ minds. There’s nothing I didn’t like about the novel. So if you want to find out why the life of a nurse is not boring at all, I recommend Never Change. You won’t waste your time.
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